2000 Photo Contest, Sports, Stories, 2nd prize

Photographer

Tim Hetherington

Panos Pictures

01 May, 1999

Practicing headers on the streets of Monrovia.
Football provides some relief, focus and stability to children traumatized by the civil war. The war lasted seven years, leaving a broken economy and continued skirmishes in the north of the country. Thousands of children fought in the war. Teams like the Millennium Stars, made up of former child-combatants, help children to develop an alternative sense of pride, in sports skill rather than in violence.